You put your left leg in, you put your left leg out, you put your left leg in and then you shake the duvet all about!

Sound familiar?

Are you waking up repeatedly throughout the night hot, sweaty and stressed?

Are you shaking out the duvet and turning your pillow every couple of hours in desperate search of some respite from your body’s bursts of temperature?

Night sweats are one of the classic symptoms of menopause and they suck.

Worse still they make your days miserable too.

When you don’t sleep you’ll be stressed, lack focus and struggle to find the energy you need to get you through the working day.

The truth is we don’t completely understand the mechanics of night sweats.

What I can tell you is there’s a lot of stuff going on whilst you sleep.

  • there are five stages to your sleep cycle
  • you go through an average of 3 -5 cycles each night
  • each cycle lasts around 90 – 100 minutes.

You’re night sweats are probably waking you every 90 minutes or so right?

And that’s because night sweats are most likely to occur during stage 5 of your sleep cycle when it’s particularly tricky to regulate body temperature. And you’re going to hit stage 5 every 90 minutes or so.

Instead of bouncing out of bed each morning you wake up feeling more tired than when you went to bed the night before! I know I did.

You’re too tired to think straight, too tired to work smart and too tired to eat right.

You’re too tired to enjoy time with your family or friends in the evenings and at weekends. In fact you’ve probably stopped going out!

Well breathe and relax because it doesn’t have to be that way.

Practical advice to manage your night sweats this week:

  • Go shopping. You need to be sleeping in cotton night clothes on cotton sheets. There are less chemicals in cotton than in other materials so you’ll stay cooler for longer.
  • Separate duvets. If you share a bed buy your own duvet. Separate duvets mean you’re not impacted by your partner’s body heat and you’re not going to disturb their sleep either.

Practical advice to eliminate your night sweats for good:

  • Cut down on caffeine. Caffeine triggers your body’s fight or flight response, increases cortisol, and puts immense stress on your internal systems. That stress will make your night sweats worse. Gradually reduce your caffeine intake and replace your regular cuppa with herbal teas.
  • Avoid alcohol. Yep it’s true alcohol is the no 1 trigger for night sweats. If you don’t believe me start tracking your sweats. Are they worse when you’ve been drinking? Yes they are!

If you’re recoiling in horror at the thought of going without caffeine or alcohol ask yourself this one question:

What’s more important to you? A glass of wine or a good night sleep.

You don’t have to put up with night sweats. You can beat them.

Focus on how different your life will be when you’re sleeping through the night again.

Rather than dragging yourself out of bed each morning you’ll wake up refreshed, energized and focused.

So come on what are you going to do first – shop, ditch the caffeine or cut out the alcohol?

Let me know in the comments below – I’d love to hear from you.